Whether you love the PPACA or despise it, there’s an article over at the New York Times on the development of the Healthcare.gov web site that you should read. It recounts the project’s rocky history and many roadbumps encountered along the way including excessive complexity, inability to specify functionality until very late in the project, unrealistic expectations, and unworkable delivery dates. I laughed out loud when I read this:
One person familiar with the system’s development said that the project was now roughly 70 percent of the way toward operating properly, but that predictions varied on when the remaining 30 percent would be done. “I’ve heard as little as two weeks or as much as a couple of months,†that person said. Others warned that the fixes themselves were creating new problems, and said that the full extent of the problems might not be known because so many consumers had been stymied at the first step in the application process.
It’s obvious the Times’s reporters aren’t familiar with the 90-90 rule. If that estimate is correct, it could be years before the site is actually working.
I genuinely sympathize with the Administration on this. It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t admit problems, can’t admit even the smallest error, and can’t even do the right thing due to the political considerations. That may be fine when running a political campaign but in project planning it can be disastrous. Large scale projects have enough inherent problems.
I have some sympathy but not much. None of this is new, we do know now how to build web sites. No one thought to call up Jeff Bezos?
Amazon.com’s web portal has developed over a period of more than 15 years, each year building on the prior year’s development. When a software project at Amazon flops, as hundreds or even thousands unquestionably already have, nobody knows about it.
Additionally, scale is a very special problem. I think a lot of Healthcare.gov’s problems stem from the obviously incorrect decision to compel registration in order to browse. I also think that any reasonably intelligent primate would have advised the White House that an incremental roll out, something that could have been done, would have provided a heckuva lot less exposure than the much more dramatic turning on the lights on Oct 1 that was done.
I think that once they realized they would have to create exchanges for a lot more states than planned, they should have decided to phase in the exchanges. Those that decided to have the feds do it should not have had an Oct 1 opening.
Steve
The California site appears to be working fine. And we are as big as a medium-sized country all on our own. I don’t know why it’s possible to put up a site that serves 38 million people but not 300 million people.
You beat me to it. I was going to pose a question after seeing the same article, which I will get to in a second.
First: “When a software project at Amazon flops, as hundreds or even thousands unquestionably already have, nobody knows about it.” The shareholders do. And those who cast their lot for better or worse with Amazon have a serious interest in governance. Its a serious distinction.
The question I was going to pose is simply this. Forget whether you are “for” or “against” Obamacare. I think everyone knows where everyone else stands, and no minds are going to be changed. But given the history of cost over runs and poor service in government “services.” And given this almost disastrous start (prolific and disingenuous – my words – excuse making aside) , and what is obviously going to be a tremendous cost over run in implementation and inevitably in running Obamacare……..how does one with a straight face not acknowledge this is going to be a financial calamity?
Well, for one thing, Michael, the problems don’t scale linearly. What that means is that 10 times as large doesn’t mean 10 times as many problems. It means 100 times as many problems.
Is that really true, Michael? I’ve seen “reporting” that CA is working OK, but then I see its all friendly “reporting” and the truth is they are as screwed up as any.
Ms Sebelius was not above lying to Jon Stewart. But then, matbe the most important thing is when he will get audited……….
Drew:
I’ve been to the site a couple of times. Seems fine. As soon as I can figure out the whole stupid incorporation issue — all a result of the previous system so beloved by Republicans — I can go get a policy that will save me thousands of dollars a year. Thanks to Obamacare.
Thousands. For a better policy. And that’s not even counting the 3000 at least I’ll save by dissolving the corp. Or the extra accounting hassle. Or the peace of mind that comes from knowing I can’t be dumped off my policy as soon as I get sick.
For the first time I’ll be able to be completely honest with my doctors. For the first time I’ll know that paying premiums isn’t just a waste of money. For the first time I can be sure that if I kick off or go broke and then one of my kids gets sick they’ll have medical care. My kids will be okay, my wife will be okay, it’s like a fifty pound weight off my back.
I feel positively European.
The elder prophets Brooks and Yourdon must be getting
Brooks and Yourdon must be getting quite a chuckle out of this mess. If and when they finally get the front end somewhat functional they’ll have to start dealing with all the contradictory business rules in the legislation and controlling regulations. How messed up are the rules? Enough to require a number of new law schools.
There is, however, a much more immediate problem looming. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of existing policies will no longer be offered. All of these people are going to need new policies come 1-1-14. Remember when the mortgage default rate doubled? The mortgage holders were swamped. Home owners were left in limbo for months. I fear the same will happen with the insurance companies. They will be inundated. Instead of getting millions more insured as promised we will get millions more uninsured. And they’ll be pissed.
“For the first time I’ll be able to be completely honest with my doctors.”
Um, er, and you were castigating insurance companies, or something?? Look, all they have to do is look during your physical. Don’t need a ruler to measure 4 inches……..
Sorry, man…..
‘but then I see its all friendly “reporting†and the truth is they are as screwed up as any.’
And you know that how?
Meanwhile, Patients Mired in Costly Credit From Doctors
Great, so a rich man is going to save a few thousand, and my wife and I are going to get fucked in the ass when the plan we’re using gets dumped because it no longer comports with what Obama wants us to have. Not to mention we’re on THAT plan because our old plan jumped in cost by about $3000 last enrollment period.
But hey, as long as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer! Success!
It’s all become very primal in this country — “If I’m ok then you must be ok too” kind of reflections. Yeah, there are numerous stories of huge jumps and/or cancellations in other people’s HC policies. But, that’s their problem and not your’s. So, life is good. Social progressive polices are sublime. Magically, polling is even indicating an upward tick for the ACA. After all, give people free food, money, health care and they will like it…as well as the political party doling it out. It’s like offering children the choice of cod liver oil (R’s) or candy (D’s) as choices to feel better — absolutely a no brainer as to which most will chose.
Now the dems, with thoughts of winning the current PR battle swirling around in their heads, are stretching even further to cobble the country with endless debt/deficit problems. To speed everything up the dems want sequestration cuts to be eliminated (the one paltry measure reducing debt, which Obama and his crew took credit for), along with raising the debt ceiling (Reid wants another trillion), and of course extending another bogus CR.
Consequently, IMO, both parties are on a suicide mission — the big difference is, while the R’s are tempting a fiscal crisis to materialize sooner, the dems are just piling on more social program expenditures making certain it will come later.
Whew…I was beginning to think that PPACA was a complete flop, but now I see that we’ve solved the problem of wealthy authors who previously had to incorporate and pay a lot for their health insurance.
Forward!
In all seriousness though, I initially ignored the criticisms of the glitches because I assumed it was partisan sniping. It sure looks like the problems are real, and enormous. This morning I read that they are going to have people fill out paper applications, which will later have to be entered into the system after they fix it. I’ve always admired the Apollo 13 duct tape spirit, but really?
More on the Obamacare roll out:
Obamacare Changes To Hit 800,000 Jersey Residents.
.
Also, IT people are saying the 90% glitch-factor being experienced is not necessarily something that can be easily fixed. Tech people, with sophisticated programming backgrounds, point to the utter complexity of the system, where you have to synchronize multiple time zones, multiple servers with multiple data bases — state driver’s licenses, immigration, SS, VA, banking institutions, medicare, medicaid — many of which have data bases with legacy systems that are decades old. All of these then have to be integrated. However, such an assortment of data types just don’t match up until they go through a ‘normalization’ of the data types, which some calculate might be a 3-year process. After normalization, add another 2 years having data exchanges like XML, and the smoothing out period could conceivably be 5 years!
In the meantime, there may be people who think they have signed up for health insurance, go to their doctors for medical care, to only find out they are nowhere to be found in any data bases. What do they do? Could such a government glitch produce another fall-out similar to what was recently experienced when EBT cards malfunctioned, and were blank, creating chaos and looting in a Walmart store? Perhaps, this is what awaits doctor’s offices across the country.
Lastly, what kind of effect are inherent security problems, brought up by ‘crazy’ McAfee, and reiterated my many others, going to have? Assertions are that these systems are incompetent, are a Hacker’s dream for scam artist’s, the NSA, and professional hackers such as Anonymous, to easily access a person’s private information, storing it in their own data bases. The reason this hasn’t yet manifested itself is 1) so few have managed to sign up 2) the system is so broken that even the hacker’s are having problems hacking into it.
Consequently,I’ve decided to pass on logging onto the healthcare.gov site. Becoming a HC guinea pig, testing the security operations of an already seriously flawed and low operational system can be Michael’s gift to humanity, as he already seems so excited by the thousands in HC savings he thinks will be his. Oh, BTW, there are those who are also saying these low HC quotes may be teaser rates, much like banks do to rope people into something that looks too good to be true, and eventually proves to be just that.